Zune will play an important role in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

Its days of being the best MP3 player money can buy (take that, iPod!) may be over, but it turns out Microsoft's Zune still has an important role to play.

If you've seen Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, you'll likely remember the appearance of a Microsoft Zune near the end. The ill-fated MP3 player was used as a bit of a joke, but also as a way to connect protagonist Peter "Star-Lord" Quill with his mother, Meredith, through music.

As it turns out, the Zune was meant to achieve more than a chuckle and a heartwarming moment. According to a recent Facebook Live Q&A with the movie's director, James Gunn, Star-Lord's newly acquired Zune will also serve as a way for his (spoiler) now-dead surrogate father, Yondu, to communicate with him through song in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (via Polygon).

Spoiler spoiler spoiler, the song choices in Vol. 3 will be Yondu communicating with Peter

The Zune's best years may be behind it, but it's neat to see it still seeing some relevance more than a decade after its debut — even if slightly in jest. No word on what type of music we'll be hearing from the Zune in the next movie, but the move from the franchise's signature Sony Walkman to the Zune certainly opens up the possibility of slightly more current song choices.

For more, check out the full Q&A with James Gunn in the Facebook video below.

I agree, I have a Zune HD 64 GByte and it still works great. I just wish I could update the software and install audible audio books again, as Windows 10 and Audible audio manager won't connect with Zunes anymore routinely. So, I have to use an old Windows XP laptop to put Audible audiobooks on it,

Microsoft, or hackers get Windows 10 CE or some updated software to run on the Zune HDs and Zunes!

Ahh, my beloved Zune and I was happily surprised to see it in a big movie like Guardians 2, and can't wait for the next one! Love Live Zune! I retired mine since I ran out of space on my Zune HD so I use my Lumia 950 with expandable storage for all my music.

Nice, I like this move. I think that like with the walkman, this will create a wave of ironic and post ironic consumption by hipsters, which would be even more interesting if MS used the opportunity to relaunch the device non-ironically in an updated version.

tl:dr: Hipster kids will buy anything that they see in movies, especially if old/outdated.

BTW, the Zune was amazing, it doesn't deserve the ridicule it gets basically for not being an iPod. But yeah, Apple zombies, etc.

i concur. my sister kept losing her ipod and she wanted another for her birthday one year, but i bought a refurbished zune instead. i ended up being jealous of it. the zune was awesome. i wanted one. but before i could get my hands on one, slowly, but surely, the zune died out. pretty sure she lost her's too.

I still have my zune and loved it for me it was way ahead of the iPod but sometimes things that are better are not the successful ones.

I don't mind groove and I was using it up until i got a xperia xz premium amd for some reason it dose not work with it. It plays music for about 10 mins then stops unless the phone is plugged in but there is no fix so trying Google music which for me is not as good imho.

You don't know what a hipster is if you think they'll buy a Zune because of this. Whether you like it or not, the Zune has been a joke on Between Two Ferns, Silicon Valley, etc. When it showed up in Guardians 2, my cinema laughed.

Nostalgia can sell, like the SNES Mini or the iPod Classic spike after Baby Driver, but people are only nostalgic for things they own and love. Hardly anyone owned a Zune and for everyone else, it's a punchline.

I agree. They should rename Groove Music to Zune. Then they should replace Groove with the Zune software. And they should fire everyone who worked on Groove. And they should market something properly for once. Psh, that's never gonna happen.